Tackling Food Waste

One of my goals this year was to reduce food waste.  One of the downfalls of blogging, and being in cookbook club, is that I often buy ingredients of which I only need a small amount.  Add to this my penchants for stocking up when things are on sale and buying things well…just because.    As a result, my freezer and pantry are jam-packed and I sometimes forget about fresh produce in the fridge until it is too far gone to use.

Last year, I stole an idea off Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers and implemented a dairy shelf in my fridge.  All dairy items go onto it which means I can keep track of those items a bit better.  To twist the old phrase around “In sight, in mind”.

Recently I have also (maybe also inspired by Jenny???) implemented a “Use By Shelf” that contains the items that need to be used in the near future.  Again, I have found that keeping these items front of mind has helped me to ensure that they are used in a timely manner.

Fridge Freezer Pantry Week

My latest endeavour is Fridge, Freezer, Pantry week where one week a month I  minimise my shopping and cook as much as possible from items in….wait for it…my fridge, freezer and pantry.

Bet you never saw that one coming given the ambiguous name of the challenge!

My aim for this week is to only buy fresh fruit and vegetables.  Everything else has to come from you know where!

Here is how the first attempt at this went

Sunday Night – Baked Lobster!

Cos, you know, if you’re going to start something, start it with a bang!

• I bought lobster tails at Christmas when they were on sale.  They came from the freezer.  Everything else came from the pantry.
• The recipe called for fennel.  I didn’t have any.  Normally I would have bought some but this week?   I had some dill leftover from the potato bake so I used that instead.
• I also subbed in Worchestershire sauce for the anchovy essence the recipe demanded.

This was an okay dish.  I think the white sauce dulled the flavour of the lobster a bit which prevented it from being a great dish. I would not make it again which is why I have not included the recipe.  If you want it, let me know.  I don’t know why you would but hey, you do you!

Monday Night – South American Chicken and Rice

This was amazing!  Diana Henry’s from Oven to Table is our current Tasty Reads selection and so far every dish has been a winner.

This recipe used chicken from the freezer and rice and black beans from the pantry.  The only things I bought specially to make this was a punnet of cherry tomatoes and some chicken stock.

I did not use fresh peppers, I had some in a jar which I used instead.  There were also chillies and garlic in that jar so I added them in too.

There was a lot of this leftover and given I had the potato bake and some soup to eat for lunches I made little one-serving packages of this and popped in the freezer for future use.

Tuesday night – Pizza

Earlier in the week Mum dropped off a heat and eat pizza.  Someone had given her two and we benefitted from her surplus.  I had film club that night so this was a perfect night for the Fussiest eater in the World to pop something in the oven whilst I chatted about the pros and cons of Revolutionary Road with my friends.

It was ok.  Not as good as pizza shop pizza but better than frozen / supermarket pizza.

Wednesday – Bacon, Halloumi and Vegetable Pasties

A little while back I made the veggie pasties from Jamie Oliver’s Veg.  I had a LOT of the leftover vegetable mix so I  popped it in the freezer.  The halloumi and pastry also came from the freezer.

The bacon came from the use-by shelf. 😇

I bought nothing for this meal and it was delicious!!!!  Believe me, the picture does this no justice!

Thursday and Friday – Lamb and Cashew Curry

Oh.  Wow.  This was AMAZING!!!!

I used Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s Lamb and Cashew Curry for this.

I had to buy cashew nuts and coriander for this but it was worth every cent!  This was divine! The lamb was melt in the mouth tender and the cashew gravy was lick your plate clean good!

Oh!   I intended to make some flatbreads for the curry but ended up just serving it with rice.  I bought some oat bran for the flatbreads which I did not end up using.   Grrrr.  😡

Saturday  – Squid, Chorizo and Chickpea Salad

Yay! I got to use those chickpeas on the Use By shelf!

I bought some oregano for this.  It was marked way down.  TBH though, I would have been happy with the leftover coriander from the curry.

Oh lord, I dropped my recipe for this into the frying pan that had all the chorizo oil in it!  Luckily I was able to find it here!

My favorite dishes…I tried so hard to come up with just one but it really was a tie between the curry, the pasties and the South American Chicken Rice!

The Positives

• Eating out of the fridge, freezer, and pantry created some amazing meals.  Having said that, I had a lot of things in those places that made it easy!
• Pretty much everything on the use by shelf got eaten.
• I spent WAY less  money than in a ” normal” week of shopping
• I also feel I threw out fewer items than usual.
• It was really fun to build my menus around the items that needed using!
• Being conscious of not wasting anything also made me more proactive about ensuring that the leftover South American Chicken and the soup I was having for lunch were also frozen up for future use.

The Negatives

• On Saturday morning I had to throw out an untouched bunch of broccolini which I could have used in the pasties.
• We also threw out a whole cucumber, some ratty-looking chives and some bean sprouts
• I now have pretty much a whole punnet of oregano to use, which even though it was bought highly reduced I have no further use for and which I don’t think really worked in the salad for which it was bought.
• I bought that oat bran I never ended up using.  One more thing in the pantry….

The Learnings

• Keep a much closer eye on the produce drawers
• Don’t buy things for which you have only one use (even if they are on sale)
• Keep using what I have
• Try to shop more than once a week for fresh produce so that things do not languish in that produce drawer
• Take tips from the experts.

Whilst a few things went into the freezer and a few things went into the bin, on the whole I was really happy with my first attempt at fridge, freezer pantry week.  It made me conscious of things that I need to be doing all the time and of how I can make the best use of what I already have. More than that though, it inspired me to keep going and to really get my act together when it comes reducing the food I waste. 

This is what the useby shelf looked like by the end of the week.  The four containers at the back are three serves of a cottage pie the Fussiest Eater in the World made for his work dinners and the last of the pasties.

I didn’t quite get through all that hummus but resisted the urge to buy another tub when I went shopping this week.

The three new containers hold some of the leftover chorizo and chickpea salad, and half an onion and half a lemon that I used to make it.  That oregano is also there…😣

My favorite dishes…I tried so hard to come up with just one but it really was a tie between the curry, the pasties and the South American Chcken Rice!

If anyone has any tips on what to do with it, please let me know!

Indeed if you have any tips on reducing food waste, food management, etc please send them through, I would love to hear how you meal plan and your ideas on how to reduce waste.  I have only just started this journey and know I have a LONG way to go before I get this mastered,  so any advice I can benefit from will be greatly appreciated!

Have a great week!  Stay safe and reduce waste!